Mike recently emailed me to let me know about some of his recent animations up on YouTube. He’s possibly the most committed fan of Star Trek: The Original Series I’ve ever met, and I spend a lot of time with SF fans of all stripes. Even back when we all lived in Augusta, he did a lot of cartoons about Kirk and Spock for Starlog.

I’ve always been a fan of Mike’s 3-D Pete character. There was a stretch of time in the 1980’s where he did topical strips about the comic industry every week for The Comics Buyer’s Guide. At a one day con in Columbia SC I got Keith Giffen to pencil a sketch of 3-D Pete and Ambush Bug together, and Mike inked it. Fun times and he could say he inked Giffen. Win-win!

It was an exciting time back then in Augusta comic book fandom. I worked in the comic book shop, local artist Tom Lyle was just beginning to work regularly at pro gigs and Mike was doing 3-D Pete in the comic industry’s weekly paper of record.

I see from his web page that he was at Dragon*Con last year. That makes it an even greater bummer that I couldn’t make it. I think the last time I saw him in person was in maybe 1991 or 1992 when I stayed with him and his wife Margi outside of Charlotte and we went to HeroesCon together for that weekend. Good gravy time flies.

Mike has been doing computer graphics for just about as long as I’ve known him. He did both eras of the computer generated logo for Reality Break, the radio version and also the updated podcast era logo. If you want graphics or animation done, check him out. He’s a great cartoonist and a great animator.